Dave's Adventures in Business Intelligence

I’m not sure Jobs had this in mind when Apple invented the iPad:

Cartoon from MiniMumble.com.

There were certainly a number of interesting developments in 2011, including the release of BI 4.0 and the ever increasing hype about HANA. But more importantly my family ended the year healthy and happy and that’s far more important. I certainly wish the same for you, your family, and your friends. I’m taking a break now and will be back again to talk about mundane BI topics next year.

I will be kicking off January with the next post in my “becoming a blogger” series. I will be starting off my conference season for 2012 by attending MicroStrategy World later that month followed by attendance (and speaking) at the BI 2012 event at the end of February. I’m delivering several track sessions at BI 2012, including co-teaching a primer on universe design with Michael Welter.

But until then, best of wishes to everyone for a happy and healthy new year. 😎

Over on BOB we’re having some fun with a few holiday logos in place of our standard green guy. Our regular board logo looks like this:

For the next few weeks, board members will see the logo rotate between alternate versions such as these:

And of course this:

During the American Thanksgiving week we used this:

Now I do realize that some of these logos are not necessarily going to reflect the global nature of our community. For example, the snowflake probably doesn’t make much sense to our friends below the equator. 😉 So that’s where this post comes in to play.

If you have a minimal amount of graphical talent (or even a lot!) and would like to have your work immortalized as a part of our community, here is your chance! Come up with a seasonal logo – it does not have to be for the end of year holiday season, it can be anything you like. For example, how about a special logo for talk like a pirate day?

Come up with a logo, and as long as it meets certain standards of taste (I don’t think I need to list the obvious issues here) we’ll consider adding your seasonal logo to the rotation next year. Until Google opens their next competition to design a Google Doodle, this could be your shot at Internet fame. Go for it. 😎

How do you submit an idea? Check out this topic on BOB for more details.

Related Links

• What is a Google Doodle?

In Part I of this post I talked a little bit about what I think it takes to get started in the world of blogging. In this post I would like to talk more about some of the challenges related to running your own blog. To that end I would like to answer a few questions that people have asked me, and perhaps one or two that people have not asked but maybe should have. Continue reading “Blogging For Dollars? Or Something Else?”

Steve, Michael, Amy, Susan and I got together with Eric Vallo and several other folks at the conference last week to talk about the origin of BOB. Amy and Susan were the co-moderators of the mailing list that became what we know as BOB today. Steve and Michael are current BOB moderators and were part of the initial discussions when we discussed options for transitioning into something beyond the list. The five of us had a great time reminiscing about how BOB came about.

Have a listen!

I gave away one of the last remaining BOB hats at my session yesterday. Just another reason to try to come to the SAP Business Objects conference next year.

They added an additional day next year to focus on analytics. Still getting information on what that means as far as extra cost and what content will look like.

Timo Elliott published a great blog post this morning:

Why In-Memory Analytics is Like Digital Photography: An Industry Transformation

Timo is an avid photographer as well as a BI evangelist, and in this post he combines his knowledge of both, making some excellent points along the way. It’s well worth hopping over to his blog to check it out.

SAP had some fun on the BI 4.0 launch in New York last February. For years SAP along with other vendors have been touting their ability to import and analyze external data from various social media sources. Two SAP presenters at the launch event took a vote via Twitter as to which tie would meet the “Scissors of Destiny” at the end of the session. (Steve Lucas made an impassioned plea to save his tie, which he said was a gift from his wife, versus Dave’s tie which he “… just bought last night.” Steve won, and his blue tie survived.) It was a fun display of technology, but is it really that important? How impressive would it have been if the “fail whale” had picked that moment to make an appearance?

I don’t usually spend a lot of time here on my blog talking about philosophical aspects of BI as I am personally more interested in technical issues and solving problems. But the apparent consensus as to the importance of social media bugs me. Continue reading “Social Media – I Don’t Get It, But Spammers Do”

Eric Vallo and I sat down for a quick conversation here at TechEd, and the results will be up on their unstructured geeks page after he gets a chance to upload it. Fun stuff!

Edit: Post is up! Eric and I sure sound a lot alike, at least to me…

Hi, folks, I’m sorry for the delays as I fully intended to upload the code by now. It turns out that everything was ready to go but there’s no button to click to run the macro! I realize many of you can figure out how to run the code anyway, but I decided to pull the code back and get a button set up.

I’m getting ready to travel to SAP TechEd this afternoon, but hopefully will either be able to get the update made on the plane or after I get to the hotel tonight. I may yet get this released before BI 4.0 comes out. 😉